“Grandpa taught me how to play chess, don’t you remember?” Eva said as her grandmother joined her in the closet looking through boxes that had been accumulating for almost fifty years in the apartment her mother had grown up in."

Laura G. has sent us a story about loss that we can all relate to. When we lose someone dear to us, we keep our loved one alive with our memories of them. Sometimes a particular object will provide a connection to that person. After I lost my dad, many years ago, my mom gave me a couple of his belongings that she thought would have particular significance to me...

When I was a young girl, far-off relatives would send the family a fruitcake every year before Christmas, and every year it would sit in the middle of the dining room table untouched. In moments of desparation, I'd try to carefully extract the tiny bits of cake from the surrounding fruit and nuts only to end up frustrated, cursing it. But maybe a fruitcake is more than just a fruitcake...

Just in time for the holidays, StoryRhyme.com is happy to present a short story by our friend Harry Buschman, "Christmas Story." Many of us are familiar with the story of Joseph and Mary searching for a night's lodgings and being turned away...

Charlie, our middle schooler, brought home "Diary of a Wimpy Kid, a novel in cartoons" by Jeff Kinney the other day. I don't think I've ever seen him laugh so much at one book. Silly, gleeful laughter. But, many parents don't like this series. Why..?

Some of you sharp people out there have figured out that for the past few weeks, StoryRhyme.com has been putting up a picture of the week on the front page of our site. Husband scrolls through his collection and picks one that strikes his fancy. We'll see what the coming weeks will bring...

"Sadie Devons was declared to be a witch, but in an age when witches were burned at the stake, she enjoyed a long and comfortable life. She owed it all to her one eyed cat “Brimstone,” she said. It was a handsome cat; jet black except for her left front paw, which was white as snow..."

Yesterday, my mother-in-law was put under anesthesia and this robot removed the upper lobe of her left lung....

Fall feels like the possibility that something new and exciting is about to happen. There's something in the air. Even the color of the light is a little different. To make sense of this...

"The old man was a great reader. He could be a princess, a king or a roaring dragon and the children would be all ears and wide eyes with their blankets pulled up to their chins, and they would listen with rapt attention. He read well because he believed every word he read, and his belief made the children believe too. They never wanted their father or mother to read, they always asked for grandfather..."

Somewhere along the line, a paradigm shift occurred in party giving from the old model of games, party hats, cake, and presents to throwing up a bouncer in the backyard (or the front -- ugh) and leaving the kids to fend for themselves while the adults sit around talking...

“First of all I'm a nonagenarian – too old to be learning new things and probably too old to be giving advice as well. But never too old to tell stories about the way things used to be...”

Update: The roof was raised (while I bit my nails nervously) and the rest project proceeded without incident until Husband injured himself (twice) on the final day of the build...

Monday, August 10, 2009 • This morning, I sat on the newly-installed floor and read the morning paper while Charlie counted the bumblebees making their way to the Angel Trumpets. The breeze was cool and lovely.  Charlie told me about the falcon he'd spotted a few minutes before...

Ah, the ’60s were great, weren’t they? Doris Day, clean-cut all-American astronauts, Mitch MIller, Look magazine... How we all long for that joy-filled, unpretentious time. Let’s take a look back at that wonderful era as seen through the lens of our advertising media. What were we selling ourselves? What did we want? Oh, and see if you spot the fake ad...

My feelings about this town can be summed up with the fact that I'm most happy when I can see it in my rearview mirror. A go-go dancer in a micro-micro bikini doing her dance is right in front of me and not 10 feet away, a giant plastic SpongeBob Squarepants advertises the “SpongeBob in 4-D” ride; you know, for the kids...

Husband and I have our own coping method which involves going to the very farthest booth away from the action and trying to stay above the fray...

Down Went The Spoon is an imaginative look at childhood from the perspective of a little one who's growing and discovering that gravity is often working against her. Oh, and the little one who inspired this story? She’lll be beginning college in the fall. We wish her well. My, how time flies...

We see the couple starting off as newlyweds and watched them age before our eyes. I thought of my own marriage and growing old with Husband...

Uh, that’s hard for me to look at too and way too big, but looking through the newspaper ads (yeah, we still get a real paper newspaper), I learn that moms just love $48.97 diamond heart pendants...

The couple at the next table bring out their Wet Wipes to clean their hands before they eat, then ask for paper napkins instead of cloth. I have a fascination with pandemics, possibly because I am a direct descendant of a Spanish flu victim or maybe because I watched the movies Andromeda Strain and Omega Man too many times as a child...

We all get them, those noxious (and obnoxious) forwards.  The platitudes, the schmaltz, the misinformation -- the horror!  My favorite lately was the one about how Mister Rogers was a Navy SEAL and he wore those long-sleeved sweaters because his arms were covered with tattoos...

We'd have to spell out words around him, and he'd play hide-and-go-seek with us throughout the house...

Ash has fond memories of growing up with sugar cane everywhere. Sugar, theirs for the taking, all they had to do was cut it open (carefully avoiding the outer stalks with their razor-sharp edges)...

Do numbers have inherent power? Numerologists believe so. Me? Nahh, I'm not superstitious at all. Not me. In fact, I have my purse sitting on the floor next to me as I type. You've never heard? “Purse on the floor, money out the door..?”

Instead of simply stating the plural "Smiths" on the mat, it reads "Smith's." This begs the question, does one person live here? Why an apostrophe at all? This drives me crazy...

“I've got something I'd like to show you."

"A new invention?"

"Well, not exactly new. You've seen it before, but not since I've improved it. I'm speaking of my new electric rifle. I've got it ready to try, now, and I'd like to see what you think of it...”

I was going to title this story "Big Dog and Little Dog" until Charlie, resident Captain Underpants scholar and expert, informed me that that was the title of a line of Dav Pilkey books. Well, live and learn...

Patience is a virtue when it comes to thrift store shopping, and as the Stones say, "You can't always get what you want." I have to say, though, we've been pretty lucky. We have great memories of great finds at the now-defunct BargainTown, including a two-foot tall authentic (made in Japan) Godzilla action figure...

Years ago, when I was still in school, I worked the costume jewelry counter at JC Penney.  It was a pretty sucky, mind-numbing job and didn't last too long; but I remember the days leading up to Valentine's Day, the rush of last-minute guys shopping for wives and girlfriends.  They certainly weren't the big spenders; we didn't have anything over let's say $50...

Our friend Laura G. has sent us a new story. When I read it, I was struck by how it applied to my family at this moment in time. Last week, my mother-in-law was in the hospital for a few days. She's okay, but we, our son especially, have to deal with the fact that she's getting older...

A few days ago, Chance was doing some serious barking in the backyard. I thought maybe there were men working in the trees (the phone company), so I went out, only to find him, full of righteous indignation, barking at a jet that was leaving behind a very long contrail...